Tools

If you ever needed to clone a USB, SD Memory card, etc. Using Win32DiskImager is a excellent program tool for the job.

Win32DiskImager, enabled you to save and restore raw images to removable media. I have been using this for my Raspberry Pi installs and other USB Bootable media as a way to quickly backup and restore without having to do full re-installs.

I can’t wait to play with this free software called Z-Hire. Z-Hire is a employee provisioning that handles account creations in Active Directory, Exchange, Lync. With just a few simple clicks (one click) accounts for Active Directory, Exchange, and Lync will be created.

Z-Hire doesn’t just assist those account administrators with creating new accounts; It simplifies account closures. Z-Hire can even create accounts in Office 365 and SalesForce. So take a look at it. I am sure you will find it very useful. Best of all, its free.

This is my computer. There are many like it, but this one is mine. My computer is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life. My computer, without me, is useless. Without my computer, I am useless… And while there isn’t a true computer users creed; I wouldn’t mind having something such as this exist.

Moving forward I wanted to share with you some of software tools I install on all the computers I use to work, and play. Best of all they are all available for free.

7zip – One of the best tools for zipping and unzipping files. 7-Zip is open source software and can be used on any computer, including a computer in a commercial organization

Putty – For system administrators, network admins alike this software is a must have. Featuring support for telnet and SSH.

Notepad ++ – Notepad alternative that has great support for several programming languages.

Wireshark – What else can I say; its a network protocol analyzer used for network troubleshooting, analysis, software and communications protocol development

WinMTR – Traceroute and ping in a single network diagnostic tool. Useful when providing details to support teams

Tftpd32 – Simple to setup and use TFTP Server, with DHCP abilities under its belt. Useful when pulling down switch and router configurations or when your just need to setup a small network for imaging systems.

VLC – A cross-platform multimedia player and framework, which can also stream audio and video in a number of formats. Very useful for playing media without the need of a specific type of player

These are the just some of what I install. I hope you find my list useful.

Microsoft Message Analyzer is the successor of Microsoft Network Monitor. Microsoft released their third and final Beta of Microsoft Message Analyzer which will be followed up by the official release in the fall.

In addition to the new features and functionality, they improved performance and reduced the memory footprint. Here is a list of the new features highlights.

Centralized Sharing Infrastructure — users can now utilize the new Message Analyzer sharing infrastructure to create Library items as shareable assets that that you can import, export and share with others. Manageable asset types include Trace Scenarios, Filters, Viewpoints, Color Rules, Column Layouts, and Sequence Expressions.User Libraries — Above assets are available under centralized User LibrariesHome tab — includes new Ribbon reorganization and enhancements that include the following features:

Viewpoints — specify preset viewpoints so you can view data from the perspective of a protocol, in addition to hiding operations in the current view and resetting the default viewpoint.

Time Shifts — specify time shifts that adjust for machine skew or time zone changes across traces.

Chart tab — enables you to create, edit, save, and share your own Composite Chart viewers that can contain custom-configured pie, bar, timeline, and grid chart components, similar to the built-in Protocol Dashboard.

Session Status — includes a new progress bar indicator in Session Explorer for loading, capturing, filtering, sorting, finding, and grouping data, in addition to applying sequence matching. Also displays the number of messages in a session and the number of messages in a session after Viewpoints or View Filters are applied.

Tool Windows — the following new tools are now available:Diagnostics window — summarizes diagnosis errors in a session and enables you to easily jump to a corresponding diagnosis message in the Analysis Grid. You can also filter Diagnostics window columns to isolate specific column data.

Bookmarks window — an annotation window that enables you to mark one or more messages of interest, which includes adding links, attachments, and different colored flags.

Comments window — an annotation window that enables you to quickly add basic comments to one or more messages.

Server Response Time — a new Global Annotation entity from Column Chooser that you can add as a data column in the Analysis Grid viewer, to measure the time interval between a request operation to a server and the first server response. Provides a context for assessing server performance.

Hyper-V Switch trace capability — capture traffic from individual VMs on a host by tying into the local Hyper-V switch.

Sequence Expression Editor — develop and save sequence expressions based on message traffic that you have captured. You can also manage sequence expressions as assets that you can share with your colleagues.Filtering Language enhancements — the Filtering Language has been extended to include support for IP sub-netting and DateTime literal expressions.

OPN behavior scenario extensions — support has been added for using an Xpath-like notation when creating OPN sequence expressions, to enable you to specify constraints on message origins. In addition, support is now included for arbitrary expressions (including annotations) in reference patterns.

Centralized Field Chooser — a new feature that extends the Column Chooser so that it is available to other tools that require you to choose fields, for example, when configuring a Sequence Expression.

You can identify what information is sent from the browser to the remote web server using a Linux tool called netcat (nc). Netcat is often referred to as a “Swiss-army knife for TCP/IP”. Its list of features includes port scanning, transferring files, and port listening, and it can be used as a backdoor.

Simply run netcat in listing mode on your desired port. Example: nc -l 8080. You can then point to address of this system http://ip_address:port and netcat will display the values received.